Almaza - between a deja vu and a reference past its selling by date

I know you will not believe me but this pun has been played before. All right, first the Almaza pun "Almaza aw la aha - wala sabt". This, believe it or not is a double pun. The first is "Anta aw la ahad" the first Mexican telenovela which opened the floodgate to dubbed programs (In Mexican it was "Tu o Nadie" and it introduced the Lebanese to "Raquel" - or Lucia Mendez making "Corazon de Piedra" (the title track of the telenovela sung by Mendez) a ubiquitous hit back then and I am taking 1991 here).  Please note, anyone who is younger than my own generation has this pun lost on them as no one is aware of it. 

The second pun is a wordplay on the word "Ahad" which means both Sunday and Person in Arabic. So the line means "Almaza or no one/Sunday" which continues into "or no Saturday". The issue, this has been played before by the Al Mustaqbal newspaper (now defunct) in its Sunday edition ad:

"No one/Sunday stands in the way of the future (Al Mustaqbal means future)... and no Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday..."

Told you, it's been done before.

So between only select generations will understand and one that has been done before - Almaza brings little to the table

Elections 2022: Al Mustaqbal the most efficient campaign (that never was)

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In 2018, Al Mustaqbal misfired with a silly campaign (I awarded it worst campaign for a political party - here). Thankfully this year, their campaign is brilliant - they did not do any. This is not sarcasm just to be clear. But the head of Al Mustaqbal movement, Saad Hariri himself, decided to boycott the elections (initiate the "moukata3a").

With him the domino fell in the Sunnite sect. No matter how others - related or unrelated to the movement, officially or unofficially, Saudi-backed or not - have tried to rally the Sunnites around them, there is still this major feeling of flop.

Many Sunnites are all out with the "moukata3a la 3younak" slogan. Again, the beauty of it is that all this is coming from supporters, not from the machinary of the Mustaqbal movement. Just to explain, "la 3younak" was a jingle by singer Ahmad Kaabour for Future Television back when it was setting the pace for what good, creative television was. "La 3younak" means "for your eyes". And it transcended the television which was owned by Rafic Hariri (father of Saad) to become the slogan his supporters "cuddle" him with (see the original here),

Funnily some supporters went all out to poke on the Lebanese Forces campaign (see here) with "we can cast our ballots, we just don't want to".